Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Elijah Cummings to Meet with Fed and OCC on Foreclosure Abuses

Washington, D.C. March 25, 2013

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD) sent a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry accepting their proposal for a meeting to discuss the requests Warren and Cummings have made for documents relating to mortgage servicer abuses identified as part of the Independent Foreclosure Review.

"Criminal activity should not be shielded by regulators as if it constitutes proprietary information or trade secrets," wrote Warren and Cummings. "We continue to believe transparency is critical around the operations of the review and settlement processes, including the method by which borrower files were reviewed, the violations the servicers are found to have committed, and the scale of those violations."

In their response to the Members' earlier letter, Chairman Bernanke and Comptroller Curry indicated that as of December 31, 2012, 103,820 loan files had been reviewed by independent consultants engaged by the banks that have subsequently agreed to amended consent orders ending the Independent Foreclosure Review. An additional 9,955 loan files have been reviewed by consultants engaged by mortgage servicers that will be continuing with the Independent Foreclosure Review. Approximately $2 billion has been spent on such reviews -- nearly $20,000 per file reviewed or five times the average payout that will go to homeowners as part of the new settlement.

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